Random thoughts while multitasking my way through life

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Monthly Archives: November 2012

When I first injured my foot I did some online research, that is how I discovered that it was a high ankle sprain. I also got some information on treatment and recovery. Pretty much everything I read claimed that it would take at least six weeks for it to heal. I’ve sprained my ankle before and it’s taken only about 10 to 14 days to heal. There might be some residual effects as my ankle strengthened but six weeks just seemed ridiculous.

Today was the first day that I didn’t wear my ankle brace all day and I did pretty well. We walked all over Costco and then later Sam’s Club because we forgot to look for the gingerbread house at Costco. Later, I put the brace on briefly while moving Christmas boxes out to Sully’s mom’s garage. I was concerned about negotiating that step down into the garage while pulling a two wheel dollie. I took it off afterward though and had no significant issues. Once getting into the car I bent my ankle a bit and felt a twinge.

I was glad I was that I was finally feeling like my ankle was healing. The ankle brace wasn’t an issue except when I was wearing shoes. I mostly wear Crocs around the house and I didn’t have a lot of problems with the brace interfering with them. My running shoes though were another matter, the shoes were not comfortable at all with the brace on. I ended up wearing my hiking boots everywhere, although I think that turned out to be a really good idea. The boots gave me extra support and didn’t interfere with the brace at all. I’ll probably still keep the brace handy in case I am doing anything that might cause a relapse.

Of course, looking at the calendar I find that the six week prognosis is spot on and not ridiculous in the least. Go figure…

I finally got my 50,000 words. It wasn’t easy given the vacation, the holiday and the events of this week. My word count topped out at 52,053, and I am quite positive that about 10,000 of it is mush but at least I worked through it and got to 50K.

My goal now is to stay with it. I’ll need to go back and re-edit the mush part so that I can continue on and get the rest of the re-writes and edits done. I’d like to get a proof copy by March so that I can do any last minute editing before June the deadline for getting my five free copies of the finished book.

It’s time for me to get a move on with all of this. I’ve got these four books to finish, well five now, plus I have a few other ideas that I need to work on. I am going to work hard through December so that I can be already on the move when the New Year starts.

My sister called this evening, she was on her way to the hospital. She came home to find her husband collapsed in his office. Paramedics came and they suspect he’d had a stroke. He went into the ER, the MRI and other tests confirmed it was a stroke. He was air evac’d to a different hospital with a neurological center. The transport happened around midnight. It’s now 2:00am and they are taking him into surgery to take pressure off of his brain.

I am dozing between text messages from my sister. I offered to come down to sit with her but she said no. She has her son and her daughter (step daughter really but we don’t think like that in this family) there with her. It’s going to be a long night.

I am not really ready for dealing with this. Of course, no one is ever ready but it’s too soon after losing Sully’s dad. It’s barely been six months, we are trying to get through the holidays. Trying to figure out how it works now that there are four of us instead of five. Sully’s family was already small, Sully, his mom and dad, and his grandparents. The rest of the family distanced by either miles or past behavior. Over the years, I was added and then Boo, it was a good group for holidays. His grandparents passed a few years ago and then it was just the five of us, a smaller group but we had a great time together. Now, we are down to four, and it’s hard not to notice that our group is getting smaller. It’s hard not to be depressed, I cope by cracking jokes. I am sure some people think that I am not taking it seriously or that I am not sensitive to everyone’s loss. The truth is that I am overly sensitive to everyone’s feelings, I have to make a joke and break the tension before I start screaming or crying.

I am worried about my brother in law and devastated for my sister. I cannot imagine coming home and finding him like that. It’s so upsetting that I can’t even put it into terms of my life. Running in an undercurrent to all of that I am saddened to see our chance for a normal holiday season seemingly slip away. It’s selfish, I know, but I can’t help it. We’ve had few opportunities to celebrate lately and I was hoping for at least this family time for us to heal and make new memories. We knew it was going to be tough and we are doing our best to make new traditions and keep busy. It’s like walking into the wind though, for every step forward, it’s two steps back. It’s exhausting and miserable and most of the time it’s not getting us anywhere. What’s the alternative? Huddling in the corner? No, even at my lowest, I know that isn’t the answer either. We’ve got to keep moving forward even if it’s in fits and starts, or even though I want to scream that it’s so unfair. I mean, wasn’t it bad enough that my dog died this week? Did more bad stuff have to happen?

It’s crushing and overwhelming, but we have to keep moving forward. Not just for me, or for Boo and Sully, or for Sully’s mom but for Lily and Hans and their kids. So, we get up and brush ourselves off, even Scarlett knew that tomorrow was another day.

The plan today is to try to make it through as normal as possible. It would be easier if my first job of the day wasn’t feeding the dogs. Foley was happy to see me and I gave him a good scratch and a quick hug. It was a quick hug because he was doing the bathroom dance by the back door. He had that face that said, “thanks for the hug Mom but I gotta go!”

I am keeping busy continuing to decorate the Kitchen and Great room. I have boxes that need to go back out to the garage. Sully is working from home today which I am thankful. He is doing his best to keep my mind off of things. It’s funny though, he knows I am distracting myself by keeping busy and just pops in every now and then to check on me. As plans go, it worked pretty well he chatted with me while I cooked and helped me take the boxes into the garage.

In the evening I sat down and started making plans for my Christmas crafts. I’ve decided to make some Christmas banners similar to the Thankful banner I made for Thanksgiving. I’ve picked several sayings after thinking about the different people I will be making them for.

Boo is going to make some stuffed patchwork type of owls for people. We researched patterns online and found a few that will work nicely. I have plenty of scrap fabric for us to make a few practice owls. Boo loves owls so a few extra will note b an issue. In fact, maybe I will try to find some fabric to make seasonal owls for her. It will be fun to make some stuff with her.

That’s Hunter, my sweet Labrador, taken about three years ago. I was asking him if he’d been digging and he was acting casual. Of course, if you look closely he’s got dirt on his nose and on his right paw. I wasn’t buying his innocent act, at all, but he was too cute to be mad at.

Hunter had his thirteenth birthday in October. He was born the same week that Sully and I started dating. In fact, I gave Sully one of his littermates as my first Christmas gift to him. So, when we got married we had two crazy Labradors galloping through the back yard. Playing ball started early, Hunter could barely hold a tennis ball in his mouth and always outlasted the other dogs. Hunter was always the calmer of the two, and adapted well to hanging out in the house. We still have a hard time with Foley being in the house. He gets so excited that he wags his tail until the tip is bleeding.

The sad part of this story is that we lost Hunter tonight. He was such a sweet boy. He was laying in the kitchen while I cooked dinner. I stopped to give him scratch behind the ears and a kiss on his head and brought dinner into the other room. When I went back to the kitchen after dinner he was gone. I am sorry that he was alone but maybe he was just waiting for his goodnight kiss.

Holiday thought…

It’s time to cherish the little moments. Take the time play ball with the dog or pet the cat. The laundry or the sweeping, or even work will still be there in five minutes. Enjoy those little moments because you don’t know how many more might be left.

As we head into this holiday season I am finding that I am actually looking forward to it in a way that I haven’t felt in several years. Growing up I always enjoyed and anticipated the holidays but after my father passed away in December 2007 I’ve felt a bit removed from them. The first year, Christmas came less than two weeks after his passing and I was in a fog for much of it. Christmas morning felt odd, like I had been away for some time and we were celebrating Christmas the week after it had actually occurred. I survived it and my family was lovely, especially Sully and his parents but it was fairly awful. It’s not surprising though that in subsequent years that I felt less than my usual enthusiastic holiday spirit.

This year I feel better and I am glad for it. I am not sure if I am feeling better because enough time has past and the memories of that Christmas have faded. My father in law passed in April and now it’s my turn to get Sully and Boo through the holidays. So, whether it’s the distraction of helping others or that time is healing these wounds, I am feeling good and engaged in the holidays this year.

Now, if only I could get my house decorated and all of the boxes back into the garage.

My holiday thought…

This year I am going to enjoy it. I am not going to spend all of my energy trying to get stuff done. I will still get stuff done but this year I am going to take the time to be a part of it all.

This morning I find myself in the middle of an uncertain situation. It’s our first Thanksgiving without Sully’s father. We are determined to make the best of it but there’s no denying that we’ve each had our tough moments. Sully, in particular, has had some moments that I feel have demonstrated how he has been affected by the loss. Periodically, he is suddenly and inexplicably angry about something minor or even somewhat imaginary. Luckily the moment passes quickly and we are able to talk and move on.

The main issue today though, has to do with Sully’s mom. Without a doubt, she is bearing the biggest brunt of grief. We are trying to stay engaged with her without smothering her or making her feel like we are just going through the motions. Boo and I have kept up our tradition of meeting with Gramma for lunch every Friday and then Sully joining us all for dinner. We had a lovely Thanksgiving at her house but I worry about her being alone during the long weekend. Every other year it was a long weekend that she and Papa would have enjoyed together. I mentioned coming over on Sunday to help her get her holiday boxes out. She seemed neutral on the idea, not really for it and not really against it.

How do you know? How do you know when to leave someone alone? Or when to intervene? It makes me crazy. I want to help but I certainly don’t want to upset her in my attempt to make it better.

I talked to Sully this morning and he was neutral about all of it too. I tried not to be frustrated since I know he is trying to process things. I mentioned that it was a long weekend to be all alone and he immediately agreed that we should try to get together with her.

Finally, in early afternoon I sent Gramma a text suggesting we come over to her house to have a movie watching afternoon. She had mentioned on Thanksgiving some movies that she had been wanting to watch. I was relieved to get a positive answer. Lunch and movies with Gramma tomorrow afternoon. Yay!

My holiday thought…

My focus for the holidays will be Sully and Boo. I want them to have holidays that are happy and fun. We’ve had so many years where the holidays have taken a back seat to worry and stress. This will not happen this year. Fun and happiness, damn it!